The last stars were still in the sky and I picked me out one for my compass and set off for Rodriguez. Mexican trains are undependable and it’s nothing for one to be a day or two late making a schedule. There was a chance that the girl might still be there. I didn’t know what I’d do if she was, what I’d say to her, how I’d even get to talk to her, but I planned to worry about that once I caught up to her.
I patted my little filly’s neck as we went along. One side of my saddlebags was filled with oats for her, but she was going to have to show me some miles before she got to put on the feed bag.
The country was big and empty. Occasionally I’d see a campesino herding a few goats or one cow, but mostly it was just mesquite and cactus and sand and rocks. I rode hard for about six hours and then pulled up by a little stream and gave myself and my filly a little rest. I shook her out some oats on a clean flat rock and made a meal for myself out of beef and cornbread and beans. The don must have told the cook I was a big eater, for he’d laid me in a lunch it would take three men to eat. I was grateful. There was no telling how long my money would last and it was much better eating gratis than having to pay for it. After I ate I had a drink of water and then lay back in the sun and shut my eyes. I was on a fool’s errand, but I didn’t care. I’m the kind of a man gets something fixed in his mind and can’t shake it. I had that girl in my mind and I wasn’t going to rest until I came up to her. My daddy had once told me I was stubborn enough to be a lawyer. I don’t know where he got the idea lawyers were stubborn. I guess it came from all his legal troubles. He’d determined I’d get an education. When they were taking his land he used to rage around and swear that he was the last Young would ever be beat because they were too ignorant to know their own rights. He’d sworn I was to have an education, and not just grade school either, but better. And I’d gone. I’d gone steady until I was fourteen or fifteen—I couldn’t remember which. Les and Tod had both dropped out but I’d kept on, going to the secondary school in Corpus and living with my old aunt. It come back to me about them long hours in that schoolroom studying mathematics and Latin and all that other stuff. I hadn’t liked it a bit and I’d finally wore my daddy down until he’d said he didn’t give a damn what I did. Said it looked as if I was determined to be no account and there was nothing he could do about it.
I reckoned I’d been a disappointment to him. Fortunately he’d died before he found out just what a disappointment I’d turned out to be. Still I’d had more schooling than most. It hadn’t done me a damn bit of good.
I allowed myself about an hour’s rest and then mounted back up and lit out. The day had got awful hot and my little filly was sweating up pretty bad. Every once in a while I’d take off my hat and wipe the sweatband out, but it didn’t do much good. It was just hot and a man will naturally sweat when it’s hot.
I wasn’t too worried about finding Rodriguez. It’s a fair-sized town and there would be plenty ranchos and haciendas in the area I could get exact directions at. I figured to make it by late afternoon.
The only thing I’d inherited from my daddy had been his gold watch. Of late I’d been carrying it in my saddlebags because I’d let it run down, but I’d got the correct time off the patron the night before and I had it in my pocket. After I began to see some signs of a settlement approaching I got it out and made the time to be near four o’clock. If Rodriguez was close I’d made pretty good time. I spotted a little adobe with a rickety corral out back, but judged the people might not know much, so I passed them by and kept on to the southwest. After a little more time I saw a rider at a water hole. He was a Mexican cowboy wearing a big hat and a serape and leather chaps. I pulled in beside him and asked directions. He said Rodriguez was just a little further on and that I was headed in the right direction. I thanked him and offered tobacco, but he said he had plenty and wouldn’t take it. I thanked him again and headed out. I looked back after a little and could see him watching me. I guess he wondered what the hell I was doing out in that country. I kind of wondered myself.
It was just a little after five when I rode into Rodriguez. I made straight for the railroad office and tied my filly in front, loosening her cinch before I went in. She’d done good work for the day. I patted her and told her she’d have a nice rest now. Then I went into the big adobe building.
It was cool inside after the afternoon sun. Except for the clerk there was no one else in the office. He was a little sparrow of a man, got up in a suit as befits a man of his position. I went up and asked him if the train for Sabinas Hidalgo had left yet.
“Of course not,” he said in Spanish. “It doesn’t go for three days.”
For just a second I thought it might have been delayed uncommonly long, but then I asked if that was the only train for the week. The clerk looked insulted.
“Clearly you’re a stranger,” he said. “The train goes south twice weekly. Twice weekly it goes north.”
“When’d the last one leave?” I asked him.
He studied me as if trying to figure out what I wanted with that information. Obviously, if the train had already left I had missed it, so why should I want to know when it had left? Plainly, I was, to him, a man who didn’t mind wasting his time. “Yesterday,” he said. “In the morning.”
It made me feel better. Even if I’d ridden all night I’d never have made it in time. I got out some currency. “I want a ticket on the next one,” I said. “And I want to ship my horse with me.”
“To where, please?” he inquired.
“Sabinas Hidalgo,” I said.
He had his rate book open. “How was I to know that? This office is a busy one and there are many details. I can’t know the destination of each passenger before they tell me.”
“We were just speaking of it,” I said.
“No, Señor,” he said. “You were speaking of it. It was not I said a word about Sabinas Hidalgo.”
“All right,” I said.
“That will be forty-five pesos. Thirty for yourself and fifteen for your horse. The train will go in three days at approximately ten o’clock in the morning.”
I paid him and got my ticket voucher and then asked where the telegraph office was.
“It’s contained in this office,” he said. “Where else would a telegraph office be?”
“All right. I want to send a wire to Nuevo Laredo.”
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“Why? Ain’t there no wires to Nuevo Laredo?”
“Certainly there are wires to Nuevo Laredo. The wires go everywhere the railroad tracks go and the railroad tracks certainly go to Nuevo Laredo.”
“Then why is it impossible?”
“Because the operator is not here, Snor.” He looked around and then back at me as if I were an idiot. “That is plain to see, clearly.”
I was hot and tired from the ride and tired of listening to all his talk. I reached across the table and got me a handful of his vest and drug him out of his chair. “Now,” I said, “you tell me and damn quick where the operator is. I want to send a wire. Is that clear?”
In a way it was funny. His eyes got big as saucers in his little sparrow face and he went so white I thought he was going to pass out.
“He’s at his meal, Señor,” he said. He was scared to death.
“Then you go get him,” I said.
“But that’s not possible. I can’t leave the office.”
“When will he be back, then?”
“Soon, Snor. Very soon.”
I let go of him and he sank back in his chair, raising both hands and smoothing his vest. Once he was set back down he got to looking official again. I told him I was going to see to my horse and that the operator had better be back when I returned.
“We can hope, Señor,” he said.
“You better do more than that,” I said. “If he ain’t back you better start praying.” I went out and got my filly and led her down the street looking for a livery stable. The little clerk had been funny and it had ligh
tened my mood. I imagine I wasn’t the first had drug him out of his chair. He was about the most trying man I’d ever seen.
I found a livery stable and made arrangements for my filly to be kept until the train left. I told the proprietor I wanted her rubbed down right away and given grain and oats twice a day. She’d earned a little good times herself.
After that I shouldered my saddle and walked up the street until I found a cantina that had rooms to let. I left my gear behind the bar and settled down at a table to have a drink or two. I figured to give the operator plenty of time to get back. If he wasn’t there when I walked back in the office it might scare the little clerk to death. I had a couple of drinks of rum and then ordered up a bowl of chili. They had beer, there being a brewery at Monterey, and I had several glasses with the chili. It was good, cool and fresh. You can’t get much beer down in Mexico unless you’re near a brewery. It spoils so damn fast in the heat. But Rodriguez was on the rail line to Monterey and they could get it shipped up pretty quick.
I wondered what old Les was doing. He couldn’t be living too high, not on just the little money he had because it was going to have to last him a while. It would be sometime before things would quieten down enough for him to slip back across the border and go into Corpus. The rangers are pretty smart men and they’d have our hometown staked out either by themselves or with the help of the local law. With the three-day layover, I figured to wire him and see what his plans were. Nuevo Laredo was the head of the line for the railroad that went through Sabinas and he might be willing to ride down for a while.
I could have ridden to Sabinas faster than waiting on the train, but I wasn’t in any special hurry now that I had the girl placed and I thought it would be a change for me and my horse. The idea of laying around and not doing anything for several days kind of appealed to me. I’d been on the go so much lately that I was just a little fagged out.
I finished my meal and then went back to the railroad office. The operator was there and he and the clerk both started looking uneasy when I came in. The clerk got clear on the other side of the room, acting like he was doing something else, while I talked to the operator.
I wired Les in care of the Del Prado Hotel. I told him where I was, how long I expected to be there and that I wanted to hear from him. I signed it John Wilson. It was an alias I’d used before and one he’d recognize. I told the operator where I’d be staying and to send over as soon as a reply came in. He assured me he would and I paid him and went back to the cantina. It had got dark and I had a few more drinks and then turned in and went to sleep.
CHAPTER 15
Laying Around
Next day I got up early and just kind of lay around the town. Even though I’d left instructions where I’d be I still checked by the telegraph office several times. There was no return wire from Les. That didn’t bother me too much. I figured he’d be out and around during the day and wouldn’t get my wire until he went to his hotel for the night. I figured I’d get word next day for sure. Les had said he’d be in Nuevo Laredo at the Del Prado and you could be damn sure that’s where he’d be.
In preparation for meeting the girl I bought a new pair of breeches and had my boots blacked and oiled. I really needed new boots, but I hated to lay out the money for a good pair and I wasn’t about to buy some that were no good. My thigh was still bothering me a little, so I went by and seen a Mexican doctor. He said it was coming along all right, but he went ahead and reopened the wound and doctored it up proper fashion. I’d been mighty lucky with that wound. If the bullet had hit a quarter inch more to center it’d have broken the bone. That would nearly have amounted to the same thing as getting shot dead. I wouldn’t have been able to travel and I reckon I’d have just laid there in that little draw until the posse finished me off.
That got me to wondering what Les would have done if both me and Tod had been shot up bad. Probably he’d have stayed right there with us. Howland would have run out, but Les would have stayed and we’d probably all three be dead as fence posts. Well, it’s funny what a difference a little thing like a quarter of an inch can make.
I took supper that night in the cantina and then had a few drinks with some Mexican charros off a neighboring ranch. They didn’t have much money, so I stood several rounds, the drinks being plenty cheap. One of the cowboys, a boy named Manuel Aquilla, had grown up around Sabinas Hidalgo. I’d gotten the straight of Linda’s name from the old don and I asked Manual if he knew of the family.
“Ah, yes, the De Cavas, to be sure. Very rich. And a large family too. There are several girls—three, I believe.”
We were all in a pretty good mood, me from the drinks and them from the fact that I was paying. “Are they all pretty?”
“Most are very fair,” Manuel said. “But you understand I come from a poor family and there were not many opportunities for me to see them.”
“What about the one they call Linda? You know much about her?” It wasn’t good manners for me to be talking about a lady in a saloon, but I was eager to know all I could about the girl. I’d found out from her uncle that she wasn’t betrothed though there was considerable interest on the part of the young bucks that lived around her daddy’s place.
“Linda?” he said. “Ah yes! She and I are nearly of the same age and she went to the government school for a time. I didn’t attend, but I saw her there. A very beautiful señorita. Sabarosa!”
“Here, give us another round,” I said to the bartender. We were drinking tequila and it wasn’t but a peso for a large shot. Manuel asked politely how I came to know the girl and what my interest was.
I told him I’d met her at her uncle’s place, but the last part stumped me. I wasn’t sure myself what my interest was. All I wanted, all that was clear, was that I wanted to see her again, get up next to her and talk and see what she thought about me. Where it’d go from there I hadn’t the slightest idea.
One of the other charros give me a wink and made a circle out of his fingers. “Pinche, eh, maybe?”
He was just trying to be friendly, just joking. He didn’t know the girl and didn’t know she was quality. But it didn’t make any difference. I set my glass down and then wheeled around and back-handed him across the face. I done it so sudden and so hard that it caught everybody off-balance. The charro kind of staggered backward, his head knocked over to the side. He was wearing an old navy revolver and his hand made a pass downward as if he meant to draw. I pulled my own gun and stuck it in his ribs before he could even get his hand around the butt of his piece.
“Tien cuidado,” I said quietly. “Have care.”
The cowboys had fallen back away from us, their eyes white in their faces. The charro I had my gun on looked down and then swallowed and slowly raised his hands.
“I’ll have an apology,” I said in Spanish. “That girl is a lady.”
“Si,” he said. “Seguro.”
“Well?”
“Perdóneme! Madre de Dios, perdóneme!”
“All right,” I said. He was standing staring down at the big gun in his belly, fear in his face. I slowly pulled it back and looked around at the cowboys.
“Finis?” I asked them. I let the gun travel the half-circle. “Finis?”
It took them a second to understand I was asking if it was all over, but as soon as they got it they began nodding and jabbering away in Spanish.
“All right,” I said. I put my gun back in the holster, still watching them. Nobody said anything for a second. They stood as if they’d taken root, staring at me. Finally Manuel shook his head slowly and said, “Muy rápido!! Sonofabitch!”
It broke the tension. “Yeah,” I said, “I’m fast all right.” I motioned to the bartender. “Give that man a drink.” I nodded toward the cowboy I’d slapped. He still had his hands in the air. “Come on,” I said. “Have a drink. It’s all over. You didn’t know.”
It was my fault in the first place. I shouldn’t have been talking about the girl. That was me all over; I want
ed to consort with a lady, but I didn’t have enough breeding to keep my mouth shut about her in a damn saloon. I got just what I should have expected. The cowboys, except for Manuel, didn’t know the girl and they’d just naturally think she was a cheap trick.
The good spirit was over. They stayed around drinking but that was just because the drinks were free. I knocked off my last one, paid my bill, and headed for bed. Manuel called out something as I walked off, but I just give him a backward wave and kept walking.
There was still no word from Les by afternoon of the next day and I walked over to the telegraph office and asked the operator to wire down and see if the message had been delivered. While he done it I walked over to the livery stable to see about my filly. They had her in a straw-lined stall and she looked pretty contented. I went in and rubbed her a little with a piece of tow sack and she looked around at me, pricking up her ears.
“Not yet,” I said. “You just take it easy. We’re going train riding and you’re gonna like it. Beats the hell out of walking.”
The owner of the stable was watching me, but he couldn’t understand what I was saying. I come out of the stall and told him he was doing a good job.
“That’s a fine horse,” he said in Spanish.
“Yes,” I agreed. “She is.”
“Perhaps the snor would like to sell her? She would bring a good price.”
I laughed. “Not likely,” I said. I started out, but then turned around and looked at him. I give him a long, thoughtful look. “You know,” I said, “if I was you I’d be damn sure nothing happened to that horse. There are many horse thieves in Mexico and my mare is a fine horse.”
The Bank Robber Page 18